Don’t think this article is to discourage you into avoidance form seeing The Damned United, if you haven’t seen it already because that’s not my intention at all. It’s a marvellously entertaining film, a one which captures the time period and the unreserved cockiness of Brian Clough, perfectly.

I’m sure, give or take a few things, Clough would be very happy how he himself was portrayed. It’s a love letter piece of glorification for the great man and the last line of the film is a testament to how we all feel about him. He should have led England to World Cup glory and he was a manger well before his time, a prototype for the kind of manager that Jose Mourinho is today. 

It’s just that factual writer of the moment Peter Morgan and his blatant disregard for “what actually happened” (which I would say was quite important for a biopic) has reared it’s ugly head again and at times, it spoils the movie, just like it hampered Frost/Nixon a few months back. 

Morgan dangerously puts no weight or substance into historical chronology and is quite happy to depict his real life characters in fictional moments to add drama that isn’t needed because the events, if large enough for film, should be able to speak for themselves.

There’s a moment in The Damned United where Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) is in charge of Derby County after suffering a string of heavy defeats against his bitter enemy Don Revie (Colm Meaney) and his dirty Leeds United. Motormouth Clough decides to lock himself away as a nervous recluse in his manager’s office as the game is playing because he couldn’t bare to watch the match unfold before his eyes and see his boys lose again. 

Now anyone who has read a biography on Brian Clough will know that simply, that wasn’t the man. It wasn’t in his character to shy away from the public, to not be at the certain of attention. Like the image of the old Kings of England who would lead their men to certain death on the battlefield, Clough would be at the forefront taking the first blow and still be confident, no matter  what the overwhelming odds said otherwise, that he could see his team to victory. 

He was the difference. Not his player or the fans. He was the man to see them through and he would tell you that himself. 

The moment in the film irritated me because it was such a divergence from the Clough character that we know and it’s attempt to form him into a character that fulfills the narrative arc of a troubled hero was unfortunate.

Now that’s a moment when Morgan wrote Clough as a character and not as what he would have done. But looking at the film itself, there are moments when history is completely screwed up. A huge part of the narrative is the Leeds United team kicking to pieces the Derby County first team, leaving many of them injured for the crucial game against Juventus in the European Cup Semi-Final a few days later and which was the catalyst for a major dispute between Clough and his Derby chairman Sam Longson (Jim Broadbent). 

Again… didn’t happen. Leeds didn’t play Derby anywhere near the Juventus game and for that match, Clough fielded his strongest team. That is quite a big liberty it has to be said because it’s depicted as such a pivotal moment in the Longson/Clough relationship and I’m not sure if I can let it slide. 

Similarly a moment which really bothered me in the excellent Frost/Nixon, also scripted by Peter Morgan was a fictional telephone conversation between David Frost (Sheen, again) and a alcohol fuelled Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) on the night before they were to duel it out over the last set of televised interviews (which again, was out of sequence but nevermind) when disgraced Richard Nixon would admit to his involvement in the Watergate scandal. 

It’s hands down the best scene in the movie, everyone knows that. The first time I saw the movie I was blown away by how powerful it was and kept questioning to myself, “surely that didn’t happen?” and of course, disappointingly when I research it at home it turns out it was just fiction. 

It’s the moment everyone remembers from the film but it was totally made-up.

I felt a little robbed and cheated and how many of those people who saw Frost/Nixon won’t bother to look up the real facts and will forever think that telephone conversation, again a pivotal moment in the film, actually happened. Most people won’t read the books upon which these films are based, or delve into further biographies… their filmic representation will be the legacy that people will remember and the image of these real life figures and events for the rest of time.

Isn’t their something wrong with that then when writers like Morgan keep making stuff up?